


Being Cassandra's

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Original Work
Genre: Codependency, F/F, POV Outsider, Rain, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 10:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19207132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: What good is a love if you don’t want to get lost in it, she wonders, and she knows she’ll never have a love like this again.





	Being Cassandra's

**Author's Note:**

> This was an attempt to fill a prompt, but it didn't actually fill the prompt. It was still worth something, so here it is.

1.

She never knows whether Cassandra is coming or going. That’s the real truth of it. Their love has burned hot for years. The kind of confused love that feels fierce and beautiful but hurts deep down, makes Gina wonder if she’s becoming less of herself.

Stay or go. Stay or go. Cassandra is like the tide, sometimes here, sometimes far away. 

The two of them watch the rain fall, and Gina thinks of how much she’s given to this, and how she’d give a hundred and fifty percent to it again if it seemed like it could work.

If it could work.

If Cassandra is ever really here with her in a way that would fix things. The way it is now, what Gina is certain of is that everything feels so very small. Like she has been watching it shrink down.

Cassandra has her own way, something that Gina knew as soon as they saw each other across that crowded market at night and their gazes locked. There were stars in Cassie’s eyes, bright, bright, bright lights. 

Gina has always seen them.

She’s always known.

Fire gives in to water and the press of the tide can’t be ignored. Sometimes what is there is what is wished for, and no matter how fervent, the wish doesn’t match what is actually there.

There are nights that Cassie stares into nothing, or at least what seems like nothing, and Gina can’t pull her back.

She comes back in her own time, on her own schedule, and always in a strange, distant way that means Gina will get what Cassie gives--when she can. When she can.

“I’m seeing so much,” Cassie says, “You wouldn’t--”

And she’s right. Gina knows what she’ll say before the words are out of her mouth. Her stomach sinks.

Gina thinks of taking Cassie out in this rain, but what if that just shows her more of how they never had a chance? What if Cassie’s wish is to wash away? It could very well be true. Maybe it will happen that way whether Gina tries to guard against it or not.

Maybe keeping Cassie here at her side is just as futile as one final goodbye. Maybe Gina accidentally set them up to fail in a way she never intended. She looks back and realizes that really, something has been wrong since the beginning.

At the very end, as it draws near, sometimes these things come in bright flashes of knowing. When she’s holding onto nothing, she knows. When her whole self full of longing isn’t enough to stop things from changing, she knows, just like she’s known all this time.

This has never been forever.

2.

Cassandra has never had any kind of nefarious designs. She has tried to give what she could in all things. It is just that there have always been things she could see, could imagine, and sometimes those things feel bigger than what is right in front of her. She knows that the true weight of it all is hers to bear alone, and so she tries to engage but everything is so heavy. Still, there is a cycle to it all, and eventually she always needs to retreat.

Maybe Gina is right, and she really is like the tide. A rush of water, all moonshine and wet but unable to keep it all together to avoid sinking ships.

3.

Some of the passion is still there, or at least the idea of the passion they had at the beginning. They come crashing together in cycles and Gina holds on for all she has ever been worth. But by now when she sees the stars in Cassandra’s eyes she knows what they mean--that Cassie is not really here, in the here and now, the same place that Gina is.

Maybe she dreams of a future. Maybe the past has ahold of her. In the end, whatever it is, it always meant one thing: she is already gone.

4.

They play this tug of war together because that is what remains. At the end of the day, with so many things they’ve had to do over time to make this work, Gina is tired and left wanting.

Still, the very last thing is left undone. Gina doesn’t know how to let go.

5.

Cassandra answers her call less and less. Gina could rush out into the rain and scream her name, but it would do nothing. When it comes to grand gestures, Gina knows them all. She’s used so many, hoping despite everything that she knows in her heart. 

Sometimes the end of things comes on so slow. Sometimes things are ending from the moment they start.

In this kind of limbo, Gina tries not to fault herself for not knowing what to do. There is nothing left but to ride it out and see what happens, even if the ending is written--just the way Cassandra talks sometimes about things.

When things are this way, Gina wonders if it was worth the try. The way Cassie’s glistening eyes pulled her in, she wonders if it was always going to end up like this, or if she could have done something else, anything else, to stop the flow of time.

She has so much to give, and she knows it’s going in the wrong direction. But still every time she thinks of letting go, she knows that this is what she will always come back to. This, in all the ways it is messy and completely does not work, is still exactly what she wants.

She could stare into Cassie’s eyes for an eternity. She’s long used to it now, the way that all of their time together is tinged with sadness. She thinks maybe the world is sadness, and it leaks into her time with the starry-eyed one. The one she’d stop the tides for. The one she still wants to get lost with.

What good is a love if you don’t want to get lost in it, she wonders, and she knows she’ll never have a love like this again.

The fates always give her what they choose, and she would not undo any of these choices. 

Outside, it’s raining again, and Cassandra knocks at her door once more.


End file.
